Along the concrete bed of the San Gabriel River in southeastern Los Angeles, Sean Diaz recalled one of his worst nights in his many years of homelessness.
He’d found an abandoned building to sleep in and didn’t realize another person had already claimed the spot. Diaz said he awoke to a baseball bat bashing his head, causing wounds that required 10 stitches to heal. Had there been space in a shelter that night, Diaz said, he might not have gotten hurt.
That’s why Diaz was astonished to learn that Norwalk, the city where he was born and raised, had banned new homeless shelters and supportive housing developments…